The Spartacist Uprising of 1919 and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement: a Study of the Relation of Political Theory and Party Practice

THIS STUDY has been concerned with the crisis of the German
socialist movement which commenced during World War I
and came to a climax in January of 1919 in Berlin with the
bloody fighting between the Majority Socialists -- supported by
regular army units and by the notorious Free Corps -- and the
left wing radicals. Interpretations dealing with the Spartacist Uprising usually contain one of the following two assertions: (1)
The uprising was a deliberately planned and organized attempt
by the German Communists and their allied revolutionary organizations to overthrow the provisional Majority Socialist government and to create a Soviet-type proletarian dictatorship. (2)
The insurrection was a defensive action of the Berlin proletariat
which was deliberately provoked by the government into open
rebellion in order to furnish the government forces with a pretext
to crush the revolutionary workers and their organizations prior
to the elections for the national assembly on January 19, 1919.

The first of these interpretations is found in the writings of
Social Democratic authors like Bernstein, Hermann Mueller, and
Noske, and in. the accounts of exponents of the political right such
as Volkmann, Oertzen, and Runkel. The second interpretation
is that of the left wing radicals, for example, Richard Mueller,
Barth, and Eichhorn, and, of course, of the Communists. An
interesting position is maintained by former KPD members who
were in the Party during its early period. Representatives of this
group, such as Ruth Fischer and Paul Froelich (who are undoubtedly most sincere in their opposition to contemporary Moscow-directed parties), go out of their way to report events which

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: The Spartacist Uprising of 1919 and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement: a Study of the Relation of Political Theory and Party Practice.
Contributors: Eric Waldman - Author.
Publisher: Marquette University Press.
Place of publication: Milwaukee.
Publication year: 1958.
Page number: 211.

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